I've Learned to Live
by ShinkonoKokoro
Summary: Inspired by Christina Perri's "Jar of Hearts," Rose is in the other universe, living her life, day after day. She's learning how. But things don't always go as planned.


Rose had settled into a routine. She had kept herself numb with work and pleasant smiles, babysitting Tony and getting to know her father, socialising and telling lies. But it worked. She was moving on. Making her mother proud. Saving this universe from all of the big and bad out in the stars. Which, if she ever cared to admit to herself, she did brilliantly. Or fantastic. But those were both his words. And all things that involved ___him_were boxed up and hidden in the basement of Pete's mansion. Rose made Jackie promise her that she would never tell Rose where she had put them specifically. It was only by accident that she'd discovered the vicinity of their whereabouts, and had immediately regretted it as a nervous panicking took over her body and she had to rush to her old room and tuck herself into the back corner of her closet. Tony found her there an hour and a half later. Rose didn't do it again because it frightened Jackie.

Instead she paraded around in a farcical interpretation of life. Hadn't Shakespeare been the one to say it? All the world's a stage, and we are merely players? Deep somewhere in her heart, she was proud of the fact that she was one of the best players out there. This thin veneer that covered her broken, more like shattered, heart and will was good enough to fool her own mother. Most days.

-~o0O0o~-

"Rose?"

She looked up from her paperwork, noticing the busy Torchwood offices. Normally all she saw was her desk when she was in the building. She'd developed tunnel vision. The man standing beside her desk, however, was one of the younger employees. A recent addition. Another name to eventually be written in a consolation letter. Rose had taken that job upon herself, whether for punishment or atonement, she wasn't sure.

"Yes?"

He smiled. "I was wondering if you might like to get dinner with me?"

She frowned. He'd already broke the first rule. No one ever asked her out. They all knew the circumstances of what had happened to her. Flicking a glance to his nametag, she sighed. "Daryl, listen. I'm sorry. I can't tonight. I-"

"Oh, I wasn't asking for tonight," he replied breezily, leaning against her desk now with a loose sense of familiarity Rose was sure she never encouraged. "Wednesday night."

"I still can't," she lied. "I'm visiting my mum and dad for dinner."

He shrugged like it was no big deal. "Another night then?"

"I don't think so, Daryl." She dropped her eyes back down to her paperwork and waited for him to leave, pretending that, like an ostrich, if she didn't look at him, he couldn't see her.

"Later then!"

And it was later. It was, in fact, a week later that he came back.

"Rose! Want to grab a quick lunch?"

"I'm not-" her stomach growled, cutting her off "-stepping out for lunch," she finished lamely.

Daryl nodded. "That's fine. I brought my lunch today as well."

"I don't like eating in the cafe," she muttered, wishing he would take the hint and leave.

"Brilliant! Me either!"

And before she could protest, he was gone.

"Thank goodness," she grumbled, rolling across the office to retrieve her lunch from the fridge. Just as she'd opened the bag and set its contents out, Daryl was back, scooting a chair up to her desk, across from her.

"Do you always eat at your desk?"

She gasped and barely held off raising an arm to punch him. "Daryl! You can't just sit down at a girl's desk and eat lunch with her!"

He blinked. "I asked, didn't I?"

"No. No you didn't. Now get out of here, yeah?"

"Oh I will. As soon as I'm done eating. I'll be gone. Promise! I see you've got a lot of work yet."

He continued chattering long after he'd finished eating, and before long he became a daily fixture at her desk during lunch time. When he stayed home one day, Rose asked after him from one of the other blokes. He was only sick, he said. He'd be back soon. Later that afternoon, Rose got a call from a very hoarse Daryl. He even managed to wrangle a smile out of her, though he wasn't present to see it.

It was with the same persistence that Daryl gradually entered a small corner of her heart. His charming smile and excellent conversation skills reminded her nothing of another man. And for that she was grateful.

"Daryl!" She barked as the Torchwood alarm bells rang one day. "Daryl! You're with me!" Looking around, she shouted several other names and training kicked in so that they fell behind her in organised form. The unit clopped down the halls, alien presence warnings centring from the main lobby. The entire building would be on lock down, so no one would get in and nothing would get out.

Rose's face was grimly set, focused entirely, well, mostly, on the task at hand, a small small part of her aware of the presence of the man at the back of her shoulder.

"Rose. Rose, what is it?" his soft voice asked, masking nervousness.

"Alien," she clipped. "Appeared in the lobby. Since we're the closest, we'll take care of it. Don't worry."

"Oh, I'm not. I'm with you. I figure that's the safest place any of us could be."

She stumbled, almost falling flat, except for Daryl's large hand gripping her waist.

"Careful."

"That... That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a while," she murmured beneath the alarm so he wouldn't hear.

"What?"

She shook her head and then paused at the final corner. "Wait here, I'll go see what we're dealing with," she told the people behind her. "Wait for my signal, yeah?"

The slew of familiar and unfamiliar faces nodded, trusting her judgement. Would they, she wondered briefly, ever learn not to? She shook it off, however, and crept to the corner, pulling out a mirror to peer around.

There was rubble and a flash of blue and the bottom of her world fell out. The next thing she knew, Daryl was holding her, smoothing her hair, telling her to breath, hushing the worried murmurs around her, and stroking her cheek. Pushing the flurried hands away, Rose sat up, careful to take deep breaths, lest the vertigo return.

"No..."

"What? Rose? What's wrong?"

She pushed him away and stood, steadying herself on the wall. "No. It can't be. No. No no nonononono..." Willing herself to look, she sank to her knees, hands seeking purchase on solid reality. But nothing seemed to work, so she settled for hugging herself tightly. A blue police box sat in the middle of the lobby, rubble surrounding it. Her heart began to beat. "No... No no no..." She was sobbing.

"Rose?" Daryl's hands were on her shoulders then.

She threw him off and scrambled to her feet, stumbling towards the figure lying amidst the broken bits of stone and remains of the one door of the TARDIS that was hanging, half of it still attached to the hinges, the other half scattered.

"Why..." she moaned. "Why now..." She felt the veneer, the mask, begin to crumble away. "How dare you!" The words came out as nothing more than a breathy flutter as she reached out to touch what had become merely a dream to her. A pleasant, wonderful, brilliant, fantastic dream. "Why..." Her shoulders shook with the weight of what this meant. "Why are you here?" Faintly registering the approach of footsteps, Rose reached out to touch the familiar brown duster.

"Don't touch him!" She snapped as a hand reached past her shoulder to touch the man. "Don't you dare!" She followed the hand, realising it was Daryl.

"I was only... Rose, I'm trying to help. He's hurt."

Examining him quickly, she realised it was true. "He'll be fine," she muttered, rolling him over, smoothing the same brown hair back from his forehead as she set his head on her lap. "What are you doing here, Doctor?"

"Rose!" Pete's voice shattered her moment. "Rose! What's going on? Are you alright?"

She glanced up at her father. "Pete..." Wrapping her arms around the man, not daring to say his name until it was proven that it was him, that this wasn't a dream, that he was alive-Alive! She dropped her head to listen for breathing, feeling for a pulse.

"Rose..." He groaned with a flutter of eyelashes. She winced at the lacerations on his face.

"Don't. Don't speak. Not yet. I... I can't take this..." But she pulled him close with her arms anyway.

"Rose, I needed to see you. I wanted... I needed..." His soft words rambled and everything besides him dropped away.

This time, however, the vertigo didn't come back, because she was centred on him, by him, and the world didn't spin quite so much out of control.

"Why did you come back?" she cried.

"Had to see you... I'm sorry. I never said..."

"Hush. Hush, how do I know this isn't just a dream," she sobbed, trying to remember how to breathe. "After all of these years... I waited! Don't you know how I waited! But I had to pretend..."

"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry..." his warm brown eyes found hers.

"Don't you dare! Don't you dare say that to me! Ever, you hear me!"

"Yes, ma'am," he coughed weakly.

"Oh god, are you going to be okay?"

"Rose, he needs medical treatment," Pete insisted quietly.

The Doctor coughed. "Pete! Good to... to see you again..."

"Doctor," Rose whimpered, gripping his suit jacket.

"Rose... Rose I'm back... I couldn't... without you..." he rasped.

"That's the Doctor?" she heard Daryl ask quietly. But not quietly enough.

"Dammit! I thought I was over you!" She thumped her fists down on his chest making him cough and wheeze.

"I had to... say it... I had to tell you... So so sorry."

But then the numbness was back. Rose looked up at the wreckage around her, her mind rumbling at the irony of how it was similar to the condition of her heart. "Bloody..." She bit off the curse, looking away. "You had to come back," she droned. "Just as I was getting past you. Just as I thought I could be okay..." The hurt was turning to anger now, bubbling up from all of the years of being left behind. Pushing him off her lap, she stood. "You think you can just come... come ___waltzing_back into my life? Waltzing back like there weren't the last five years of me "living my life, day after day?" You think it's that ___easy_?"

He was rolling over to get to his feet now.

Rose's voice kept rising in volume and hysteria. "You think that if you tell me you're "so so sorry" that I'll forgive you? Well I'll tell you what! I've been moving on! I've been living my life without you! Day after day, all alone. All by myself." She knew her voice had taken on a mean sneering quality, but she couldn't get rid of it. "And guess what! You're too late. You know that? You were always too late, Doctor. One step behind. What a great Time Lord you are!"

The Doctor was looking around at her co-workers, seeing the evidence of her lies, she knew it. But he stayed silent.

"I don't know what you're here for. If you need me so bad, then why did you leave me here! Where's your answer for ___that_, Doctor! Have you got one? Have you even got a reason? Hm? I'm asking!"

The entire lobby was silent, the alarms having been turned off, half of the building standing witness to her years of anger. The Doctor stood silent and accepted it all, like the martyr he always had been.

Stalking up to him, getting in his face, Rose could see she was hurting him more. But he deserved it. "Where. Is. Your. Answer. For me." Her eyes searched his face, looking for answers, but the cover had closed and become the face of a storm.

"I love you."

Rose screamed and flew at him, beating at him with fists and open hands, pushing and shoving, kicking, pulling, clawing...

There were several shouts of her name, and then Pete and Daryl were pulling her off of the Doctor. Rose tasted blood. She'd bit her lip. "Damn you! You bloody arse! You stupid bloody idiot! How dare you!"

"Rose!" The sharp crack of skin on skin silenced her mouth, and she stared as her father's hand fell back to his side. "Stop it, Rose; you're creating a spectacle. That's enough."

She started crying again, slumping to the floor. But she managed to get out, "Quite right too."


End file.
